Eagle of the Pacific

Eagle of the Pacific

Original Japanese movie poster
Directed by Ishirō Honda
Produced by

Tomoyuki Tanaka

Sojiro Motoki
Written by Shinobu Hashimoto
Starring Denjirō Ōkōchi
Music by Yuji Koseki
Distributed by Toho
Release date(s) October 21, 1953 (Japan)
Running time 119 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Eagle of the Pacific (太平洋の鷲 Taiheiyo no washi?) aka Operation Kamikaze is a 1953 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Ishirō Honda. The film dramatizes the start of Japan's military action in World War II, with an emphasis on the role of Isoroku Yamamoto.[1]

Contents

Cast

Production

Toho intended Eagle of the Pacific to be an ambitious, Hollywood-style film. The studio used storyboarding to plan the visual effects sequences, a technique they would repeat on Godzilla.[2]

One scene required a Zero fighter plane and its pilot to catch fire. The pilot was played by a stuntman named Haruo Nakajima, who Honda later cast as Godzilla.[1]

Reception

Eagle in the Pacific grossed 163 million yen, the third highest total for a Japanese film in 1953.[3]

Release

The film was released on DVD in Japan in 2005.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Brothers, Peter (2009). Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda. AuthorHouse. pp. 42. ISBN 9781449027711. 
  2. ^ Ragone, August (2007). Eiji Tsuburaya: master of monsters : defending the earth with Ultraman, Godzilla, and friends in the golden age of Japanese science fiction film. Chronicle Books. pp. 31. ISBN 9780811860789. 
  3. ^ Igarashi, Yoshikuni (2000). Bodies of memory: narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945-1970. Princeton University Press. pp. 233. ISBN 9780691049120. 
  4. ^ "Taiheiyō no washi (DVD video, 2005) [WorldCat.org"]. WorldCat.org. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/317586832. Retrieved 2 January 2012. 

External links

Films directed by Ishirō Honda
1950s
1960s
1970s